In order to select an appropriate paint formula, the collision repair process used for restoring damaged areas of vehicles requires the technician or distributor to correctly identify the vehicle being repainted. In order to enable that identification, automotive paint manufacturers typically produce reference materials for the end users, such as collision repair shops. The primary reference materials generally known as ‘color reference chips’ are typically provided in the format of a printed book or manual. Along with actual reproductions of the reference colors (made from paint or inks), additional information, such as the vehicle manufacturer, make, model and year of production, paint code, and frequently a stock code or other identifying code specific to the paint manufacturer, is also included. These color reference chip manuals are produced by paint manufacturers and mailed periodically to the distributors and collision repair shops or other customers. Obviously, as the vehicle manufacturers change or add new colors to their lines of vehicles, these color reference chip manuals, which are quite expensive to produce, have to be also produced frequently, typically at least once or twice a year. Once a user identifies the correct paint code by using the standard color reference chip manual, she then must refer to yet another reference material, typically a microfiche or PC-based or web-based computer database, that provides the list of various components, such as tints, required to be mixed in certain proportions according to a formula or recipe to produce the paint that had been previously identified in the color reference chip manual. Thus, the current process used in identifying and then preparing the specific paints is not only cumbersome and time consuming but it is also quite expensive since costly color reference chip manuals have to be frequently printed, typically twice a year and then supplied to the collision shops and distributors. Thus, a continuing need exists for simplifying the aforedescribed complex and expensive multi-step process.
Some approaches have been tried to address some of the issues listed above. For example, BASF has recently released a new tool, called the BASF Antique Color Chip CD-ROM for restorers and collectors of older cars, that takes the guesswork out of choosing the color they need. The Antique Color Chip CD, contains digital images of more than 5,700 original color chip pages, covering models from 1936 to 1972. However, none of the prior art addresses the aforementioned issues addressed by the present invention.